LITMIR.BIZ

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expressed his concern about both the vandalism and the troubles on her morning run. Said that he’d spoken to Frank Johnson. She’d been touched that Chase had taken the time to call when clearly he had his own issues to deal with. She’d assured him she was fine and asked about his mom. “Tough days ahead” was all he’d said. He’d switched the topic quickly and had passed along the news that Chief Wilks was continuing to recover from his bypass surgery. That had led him to Jake.

      “I’m grateful that Jake’s there to take care of things. I don’t know a better cop. Nothing gets past him.”

      The words had rattled around in her head for the rest of the day. She needed supercop to look past her, to direct his attention on something else.

      When she’d started imagining how convenient a bank robbery might be, she’d returned to the dining room and wiped off tables and trays and counters as if a health inspector had been spotted outside.

      Now, hours later, she’d progressed from tired to truly exhausted. Her feet hurt and a dull pain had lodged itself in the middle of her back. The kitchen had been extra hot from the big ovens being on all day, making her shirt stick to her back and sweat gather between her breasts. When she cleaned the floor, the mop weighed a hundred pounds. To top it off, when she and Janet washed up the last of the pans, the normally taciturn woman surprised her by initiating conversation. Tara almost dropped the soup kettle on her foot.

      “What do you think of the new police chief?” Janet asked.

      “Seems nice,” she said. She turned on the water and rinsed the large pan again. She grabbed a clean white towel and vigorously rubbed dry the dull stainless steel.

      “He was Johnny-on-the-spot to go looking for you this morning.”

      And that had been nagging at her. In less than twelve hours, after Jake Vernelli had arrived in town, her business had been vandalized and she’d almost been killed. Could it really be as simple as just a streak of bad luck? Or had her luck truly run out? Had Michael found her? And was he somehow connected to the new police chief?

      Nobody in Wyattville knew about Michael. When she’d first arrived in town, the trauma had been too fresh. Then, as her body healed and her mind cleared, she’d decided that the only way to protect herself was to make sure that no one, especially not the police who had betrayed her once before, could know the truth.

      And up until now, it had been easy. Joanna Travis had vanished and Tara Thompson had appeared.

      But Jake Vernelli made her nervous.

      At midmorning, he’d shown up at the restaurant and had coffee with Frank Johnson. It had rattled her to have him at the counter. He’d watched her. Hadn’t mentioned the accident again, but she’d known that every time another customer had asked about it, he’d listened to her answer.

      Had he been trying to see if her story would change?

      It hadn’t. She’d told him the truth. The car had swerved, she’d reacted and hit the ground hard. The impact had stunned her, taken her breath away. She’d sat up as quickly as possible but by then the car was already over the next hill.

      She’d caught only a glimpse of the driver before taking the ditch; he or she had worn a hat pulled low over the face. Maybe it had been an elderly person. Maybe someone coming home from third shift at the county hospital, and they’d fallen asleep and awakened at the last moment. There was no way to know if it had been Michael.

      Michael Watson Masterly, the third. Of the New York Masterlys. Old money. Politically connected. Mean.

      But she hadn’t known any of that the night she’d met Michael at the governor’s fundraiser. She’d been working. He’d been friendly and funny, and when he’d relentlessly pursued her for weeks afterward, she’d been naive enough to believe that she was living a fairy tale. Six months after they’d met, they were living together and she’d been planning their wedding. Three months later, she’d been running for her life.

      If Jake Vernelli was working with Michael, then he’d stop at nothing short of killing her. If he wasn’t, he was still dangerous. If he looked too close, he was going to see that her life was a house of cards, and she was only one pull away from having it collapse.

      * * *

      AT NINE THE NEXT MORNING, Tara wiped her face with a paper towel. On her way to work, she’d enjoyed the clear blue sky and brilliant sun. Now, just three hours later, the temperature outside had soared to ninety and was well over a hundred degrees in the kitchen.

      The hottest summer in fifty-five years. The television weather forecasters droned on about it. In Minnesota, where summers for the most part lasted about two months and a hot day was in the mideighties, fourteen straight days of over ninety-degree temperatures had everyone’s attention. People didn’t talk about anything else.

      Except for the past couple of days, they’d squeezed in a little conversation about the town picnic. Held every June fifteenth for the past hundred and ten years, the picnic brought the town together. Over five hundred people would gather at Washington Park, the two acres of land at the edge of Wyattville. Stories would be retold, recipes traded, new babies shown off and massive amounts of food consumed.

      Since early morning, she and Janet had been slicing the meat they’d cooked the day before. The Lions Club would have three large roasters available to keep the meat warm so that it could be piled high onto fresh buns and topped with sautéed green peppers. Other volunteers would have fired up a few grills, and there’d soon be hot dogs and hamburgers sizzling. Each family that attended would bring a dish to pass. There would be lemonade and iced tea and big barrels of cold beer. No one would go away hungry.

      The parade would mostly consist of tractors pulling hay wagons—decorated with crepe paper and plastic streamers—that could seat the mayor, city council members or anybody else remotely considered Somebody. Each would have a big bag of candy at his or her side, and they’d throw handfuls out along the way, and small children along the parade route would scramble for the loot.

      Boy and Girl Scout troops would march, proudly carrying flags. Wyattville didn’t have its own high school. Kids were bused to Bluemond, twenty-five miles away. The payback came at parade time when Bluemond’s seventy-five-person band showed up. The parade started a block north of Nel’s, so for the past half hour Tara had listened to a haphazard medley of blaring horns, whistling flutes and pounding drums as the kids nervously waited to begin marching.

      At 10:45 a.m., fifteen minutes before the parade was to start, Tara locked the front door. Normally on a Friday, the last lunch special wouldn’t be served until sometime around two but no one expected that today. Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day might be national holidays but in Wyattville, it was the town picnic that garnered universal observance.

      Under one arm she carried two lawn chairs, one for her and one for Janet. The older woman had left a few minutes earlier to supervise sandwich making.

      For most of the morning, Tara had been too busy to worry about broken windows or hit-and-run drivers. Now that her work was done and the rest of the day stretched before her, she was determined not to dwell on what-ifs but rather to focus on sunshine, silly games and the simple pleasure of dangling her bare feet in the spring-fed pond.

      At last year’s picnic, she’d been so new and so edgy that the loud, unexpected burps of noise from the tractors had practically had her jumping out of her skin. Janet had been insistent, though, and she’d somehow managed to draw up her lawn chair and while away the afternoon hours with her new customers and neighbors. And looking back, she knew that was the day when the healing had started.

      The people of Wyattville had opened their arms and their hearts, and she’d found a place to call home. Day by day, she’d gotten both mentally and physically stronger. She’d started sleeping at night and stopped her steady diet of antacid pills. The small town had healed her.

      Tara stopped at the very edge of Washington Park and unfolded her lawn chair. She waved to several customers and they waved back. It wasn’t until she’d sat down that she saw him.

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